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Our power is still out

Tuesday, September 01, 2015

Our power went out last night around 7:30 and still has yet to turn on. And it's Arizona in the summer time.
I'll let you do the math on that one.

Camaron had work until midnight, so it was just me and the kiddos at home. We were playing in the front room when I noticed a noise that sounded like rain hitting our pipes or whatever is up on our roof. We peeked outside, and sure enough, it was sprinkling! It's Arizona, so we all ran outside to play in the rain. The drops started getting bigger and more frequent. I decided we should head back inside. But before I could even get the front door open, the light sprinkling had turned to buckets and they were being thrown in all directions. Our front porch couldn't even provide us protection. So we were pretty wet when we got back inside. The kids loved it.

The rain got louder and louder. Thunder and lightning quickly joined in. And within a minute of me wondering if the power would maybe go out, it did. The sun had just gone down, so we still had a little lingering light. I got Fox and Sloane in their jammies and brushed their teeth. And as we were saying prayers in Sloane's room, the power popped back on. Just like I figured it would. Nothing to worry about. But then, right after Sloane went to bed and Fox and I were picking out quality reading materials, the power went out again. This time, it was pitch black in the house. I was able to find my phone (soooo lucky I remembered where I left it), so I used the flashlight on that for a while. After about fifteen minutes, I decided we should probably figure something out if the power was going to take a while to come back on, especially since my phone battery was fading. I found a bunch of candles, but no matches or lighters. Great. Then I had the genius idea (really proud of myself for this one), to use the gas stovetop to light a birthday candle, then light the candles from that. Turns out electricity is somehow involved in lighting the burners, so they never came on. Great. Ok, now panic was creeping in. It was not even 8pm yet, Camaron was at work with the car until midnight, it was still storming like crazy outside, and my phone would probably last an hour, maybe. And no AC.

Fox was still up with me, and I'm so grateful he was. He was such a fun little companion through all of that craziness. He kept repeating what I was saying in his little worried voice. "We don't have anything to light the candles. Oh no. We need light, but the power is off, so we don't have any light!"

I have no idea how, but somehow I remembered we had a 72 hour kit under mine and Camaron's bed. Praises! There were matches in there! So many matches! And anything else we could possibly need in an emergency. So the candles were quickly lit, and we began finding ways to pass the time. I texted my mom about what was going on. By now it had been half an hour. I also texted Camaron. I don't know if it was because our wifi was off or if lots of people were using their phones, but for some reason, my phone wasn't working well. My texts weren't being delivered. Then I tried to call my mom and that failed too. It was getting hot and I was definitely panicking. I knew we needed to get to her house, because there was no way we could sleep at ours. Finally, after trying a few things, I was able to call her. The crazy storm had made its way to her house, so she was a little worried about driving and told me to give it 30 more minutes, and if the power still hadn't come on, she'd come get us. So Fox and I ate cookies, colored, and read books by candlelight. It was pretty fun.

A sweaty thirty minutes flew by. I called my mom (after more panicky phone troubles). She was still pretty worried since the weather was so bad at her house. Then I remembered my aunt lived pretty close. I mentioned that maybe I'd call her. Then is hit me. Carseats. They were in our car at Camaron's work. Oh dear. We couldn't go anywhere in a car without them. So I hung up and tried to call Cam to see if there was any way he could come get us, but my phone calls kept failing. And then I couldn't call my mom back. So I decided to get another cookie (best solution when there's an emergency). When I was in the kitchen, Fox knelt down against the couch and told me he was going to pray that we could get the carseats. Insert shocked, then quickly emotional me here. Best kid ever. So I kneeled with him and we prayed that everything would be ok and that we would feel good about it. Then we went back to coloring.

Eventually, I heard from Camaron that he was on his way and would be taking us to my parent's house:) So I packed an overnight bag for us and then he arrived and we left. In our beautiful air-conditioned car. And we saw that a huge tree branch had fallen on the roof. Yikes. It turned out that the power was out all over, but our neighborhood was basically ground zero. And the tunnel on the I-10 was flooded. And all of the traffic lights were out. So it was crazy, but we made it to my parent's house.

This morning, I took Fox to preschool and stopped by our house to see if the power was back. Nope. So basically, we're going to be living at my parent's house from now on. Come back, electricity! We need our AC! And Netflix!